Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov

Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov  (October 23 Old Style (November 4 New Style), 1840 – September 3 Old Style (September 15 New Style), 1866) was the first Russian revolutionary to make an attempt on the life of a tsar.
Karakozov was born in the family of a minor nobleman in Kostroma. He grew to hate his class because all they did was “suck the peasants’ blood.” He studied at Kazan University 1861-64 and at Moscow State University 1864-66. He was expelled from both which led to depression and a failed suicide bid. In early 1866 he became a member of the “revolutionary wing” of the Ishutin Society, founded by his cousin Nikolai Ishutin in Moscow in 1863. In the spring of 1866, Karakozov arrived in St Petersburg to assassinate Alexander II. He circulated his hand-written proclamation called “Друзьям-рабочим” (“To Friends-Workers”), in which he incited people to revolt. He wrote a manifesto to the St Petersburg governor blaming the Tsar for the suffering of the poor: “I have decided to destroy the evil Tsar, and to die for my beloved people.” This note never reached anyone; it was lost in the mail. It is possible 1866 was the year chosen because of the character of Rakhmetov in What Is to Be Done?. This fictional inspiration of revolutionary youth plans for a revolution to coincide with the apocalypse according to Newton-1866.
The inner organisation, nicknamed Hell, chose him by lots. He was more enthusiastic than the others, many even tried to talk him out of it.
On April 4, 1866, Dmitry Karakozov made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II at the gates of the Summer Garden in St Petersburg. As the Tsar was leaving, Dmitry rushed forward to fire. The attempt was thwarted by Osip Komissarov, a peasant-born hatter’s apprentice, who jostled Karakozov’s elbow just before the shot was fired . Contemporary monarchists argued that Komissarov’s action proved the people’s love for their tsar, while contemporary radicals and later Soviet historians argued that Komissarov’s involvement in the event was either an accident or an outright government fabrication. Komissarov was ennobled and given a generous allowance, but proved to be an embarrassment to the government due to his boorishness and incoherence and had to be politely removed to the countryside.
Karakozov tried to flee instead of using the second cartridge in his double-barrelled gun, but was easily caught by the guards. He kept one hand in his jacket. It was revealed later to be holding morphine and strychnine to kill himself and prussic acid to disfigure his face. Alexander asked him “What do you want?” “Nothing, nothing,” he replied.
He was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Dmitry begged for forgiveness and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. The Supreme Criminal Court sentenced him to death by hanging and he was executed in St. Petersburg on September 3, 1866. Ten of his accomplices were sentenced to hard labor, another 25 were acquitted.
As a result of the assassination attempt, the Tsar punished St Petersburg University. Students could no longer form any kind of organisation, no matter how harmless (Ishutin’s organisation had officially been to set up sewing cooperatives). They were subjected to constant surveillance and periodic searches. Karakozov was an inspiration for the radical nihilists Sergei Nechaev and Vera Zasulich.

 

Sebastian Bach

Sebastian Philip Bierk (born April 3, 1968), known professionally as Sebastian Bach, is a Canadian heavy metal singer who achieved mainstream success as frontman of Skid Row from 1987 to 1996. Since his departure from Skid Row, he has had many television roles, acted in Broadway plays, and leads a successful solo career.
Career
Kid Wikkid (1983–1985)
The members of Kid Wikkid were stationed in Peterborough. Upon hearing of the band and unaware of their ages, 14 year old Bach auditioned for the group, and was successfully hired. Kid Wikkid moved back to Toronto, and Bach’s dad eventually allowed Bach to move in with his Aunt Leslie. The event was recorded twice in the Peterborough newspaper.
Skid Row (1987–1996)
Skid Row initially formed in the late eighties with lead singer Matt Fallon. They began playing at various New Jersey clubs. Fallon would soon leave the band in 1987, leaving Skid Row without a singer. Bach was spotted singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss’s wedding at the age of 18 and the members asked him to join in early 1987. He sent them a demo of him singing “Saved By Love.” They loved it and flew him to New Jersey where they began playing gigs. Sebastian also recorded demos with Bon Jovi & Sabo’s friend Jack Ponti. (The song “She’s on Top” later came out on Jack Ponti Presents Vol. 1)
In 1991, Bach was criticized for performing wearing a T-shirt reading “AIDS Kills Fags Dead.” Later he claimed he wore it without reading it first; it had been thrown to him by a fan. Although he made light of the incident in his original apology (stating that he would’ve been offended by someone mocking his grandmother’s then-recent death with a “Cancer Kills Grandmas Dead” shirt), Bach has since repeatedly apologized for and disavowed the statement, “That was really stupid and wrong for me to wear that for one half-hour in my life. What nobody brings up is in 2000, when I was in Jekyll & Hyde, and at an auction for Broadway Cares, I donated $12,000 of my own money to fight AIDS.”
In 1990, Bach performed with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, on the same stage, at a party held by RIP Magazine, the improvised name for the band was: The Gak. In 1992, he sang the Canadian National Anthem at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in San Diego, California.
Bach was eventually fired when he booked a show where Skid Row would have opened for KISS in 1996. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate’s answering machine telling him that you are never too big to open up for KISS, and subsequently left the band. Ironically enough, four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour, without Bach.
Broadway and other projects (1996–2006)
In 1996, Bach formed a rock band called The Last Hard Men, with Frogs guitarist Jimmy Flemion, The Breeders lead guitarist Kelley Deal, and Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. The group recorded a full-length, self-titled album for Atlantic Records, who then opted not to release it. In 1998 it was released on Kelley Deal’s label, Nice Records, with no fanfare and a very limited pressing of 1000 CDs. This run may have been sold via mail order only. The album has since been re-released and can be purchased commercially.
In 1999 Bach released his debut solo album Bring ‘Em Bach Alive!, his first release after his departure from Skid Row. The album was mainly a live album composed of Skid Row songs of Bach’s era; however it also included five new original solo tracks (studio recordings).
In 2000, Bach began performing in Broadway productions. He made his Broadway debut with the title role in Jekyll & Hyde in April 2000. Although originally only contracted through early September, Bach received good reviews and was asked to extend until October 15. Replacing him was David Hasselhoff, whom Bach mentored slightly during rehearsals. He also appeared as Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show in 2001. On November 28, 2001 Bach appeared at New York Steel, a benefit concert held in response to 9/11. He appeared early in the show, left to perform on Broadway, and returned at the end when all performers gathered for a final song.
In early 2002, he became the host of VH1’s Forever Wild. In October that same year, Bach was signed to perform in the national touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar, playing the title role alongside JCS veteran Carl Anderson (who reprised his familiar role from Broadway and film of Judas Iscariot). He has said if he ever did the show again, he would like to try the role of Judas next time. A DVD video of live performances called Forever Wild was released in June 2004. That same year, he reprised the title role(s) in another showing of Jekyll and Hyde.
Sometime in 2003, Bach tried out for Velvet Revolver before the band found Scott Weiland, but was turned down because, according to Slash, “We sounded like Skid Roses!” From 2003 to 2007, Bach had a recurring role on the WB television show Gilmore Girls as “Gil”, the lead guitarist in Lane Kim’s band, Hep Alien. Members of Bach Tight Five (a project initiated by Bach in 2004, but shortly dissolved thereafter) lived with Bach and his family as documented on VH1’s I Married …Sebastian Bach, one of the “I Married …” series. Stars also included Dee Snider, of the rock band Twisted Sister.
In 2005, Bach cooperated with Henning Pauly to be the singer on the Frameshift album called An Absence of Empathy, which was released in April 2005. He was recommended to Henning by Dream Theater’s James LaBrie whom Bach is very close friends with.
On May 12 and May 14, 2006 at the Guns N’ Roses’ warmup show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, Bach joined Axl Rose on stage for the song “My Michelle”….. He joined Rose and gang for a third time the following night (May 15) to sing “My Michelle” once again. He also joined them for their Pre-Download Festival show in the Apollo Hammersmith, London, singing My Michelle. Rose introduced Bach by saying that the two had rekindled their friendship in the previous week after 13 years of not speaking. On June 4, 9 & 11 he again joined Rose on stage at the 2006 Gods of Metal Festival (Milan), Download Festival in RDS Dublin and in Donington, respectively. He also appeared on several other tour dates during GN’R’s European tour. On September 23, 2006, he joined Axl on stage once again at KROQ-FM’s Inland Invasion festival in California for a rendition of “My Michelle”. On July 30, 2006, Bach filled in for an ailing Axl Rose for “Nightrain” and the encore “Paradise City”.
SuperGroup and Angel Down (2006–2010)
Bach starred with Ted Nugent, Evan Seinfeld, Jason Bonham and Scott Ian on the VH1 show Supergroup in May 2006. The musicians formed a band called Damnocracy for the reality show, during which they lived in a mansion in Las Vegas for twelve days and created music.
Bach announced a partnership record label with EMI to jointly create a label owned by Bach, including his album Angel Down, which was released on November 20, 2007. Bach also recorded backing vocals for the track “Sorry” on Guns N’ Roses’ long-delayed Chinese Democracy, which was released on November 23, 2008. He spent the summer of 2008 playing with Poison and Dokken. He also did a solo Australian tour in May & has been working on new songs with Jamey Jasta from HATEBREED, for the follow-up to his Angel Down CD.
Sebastian Bach was the winner of the second season of the CMT reality show, Gone Country.”
Kicking & Screaming and Sterling’s departure (2010–2012)
Bach toured as an opening act for GNR’s “Chinese Democracy Tour” 2009–2010, and performed “My Michelle” with Axl Rose in Quebec City on February 1, 2010. On January 5, 2011, he was featured on NBC’s Jimmy Fallon Show in a live performance and a subsequent video of “We Are The Ducks”, a power ballad written for University of Oregon Ducks, set to play in the BCS national championship game Monday, January 10, 2011.
In spring 2011, Bach was interviewed by British metal band Asking Alexandria in the March/April issue of Revolver. The band are fans of Skid Row and covered two of their songs the preceding year of the interview. Bach also filmed in their music video “Closure”.
Sebastian has also provided the voice of Prince Triton, King Neptune’s rebellious son, in SpongeBob SquarePants in the episode, SpongeBob and the Clash of Triton, which premiered in early July 2010. In June 15, 2011, Sebastian revealed the title of his solo album would be Kicking & Screaming. In July 8, 2011 track list, cover art and title of the first single were revealed. It was released September 27, 2011 for North America and worldwide and September 23, 2011 for Europe on Frontiers Records.
On August 13, 2012, Nick Sterling was fired by Bach after refusing to sign an agreement to appear on an undisclosed TV show. Nick also broke rules set by Bach with regards to drinking before shows. Bach also stated in a radio interview that Nick is not allowed in Canada due to an alcohol-related incident. “Nick got into some legal trouble, having to do with alcohol, down in Arizona. Where he lives.” He was replaced later by Jeff George.
Recent events (2013–present)
On April 30, 2013, Bach confirmed via Twitter that a new studio album was in the works. He went on to say that Bob Marlette would be returning as producer. Bach had collaboration work for the upcoming album with John 5, Duff McKagan, and Steve Stevens. On January 13, 2014 the solo album entitled Give ‘Em Hell was announced with prospective release date of April 22, 2014. Electronic music producers Dada Life have announced Sebastian Bach as the vocalist on the upcoming rerelease of their single Born to Rage.
Give ‘Em Hell (2014)
Give ‘Em Hell is the upcoming fifth solo studio album from Sebastian Bach, scheduled to be released on April 22, 2014, by Frontiers Records.
Personal life
Bach lived in Lincroft, New Jersey. In August 2011 his New Jersey home was damaged by Hurricane Irene and declared uninhabitable. Several Kiss and Skid Row artifacts, including Skid Row master tapes, were destroyed but his father’s art, comic books, and the KISS gargoyles from their 1979 tour were salvaged. Currently he lives in a home in Beverly Hills.

 

Maratha

The Maratha are an Indian warrior caste found predominantly in the state of Maharashtra. The term Marāthā has two related usages: within the Marathi-speaking region it describes the dominant Maratha caste; historically, the term describes the kingdom founded by Shivaji in the seventeenth century and continued by his successors.
The Marathas primarily reside in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa. Those in Goa and neighbouring Karwar are known specifically as Konkan Marathas as an affiliation to their regional and linguistic alignment.
Etymology
The modern Marathi language developed from the Prakrit known as Maharashtri. The words Maratha and Marathi may be a derivative of the Prakrit Marhatta found in Jain Maharashtri literature.
The generally accepted theory among the scholars is that the words Maratha and Maharashtra ultimately derive from a compound of Maha (Sanskrit for “great”) and rashtrika. The word rashtrika is a Sanskritized form of Ratta, the name of a tribe or a dynasty of petty chiefs ruling in the Deccan region. Another theory is that the term is derived from Maha (“great”) and rathi or ratha (charioteer).
An alternative theory states that the term derives from the words Maha (“Great”) and Rashtra (“nation/dominion”).
Varna status
The varna of the Maratha is a contested issue, with arguments for their being of the Kshatriya (warrior) varna, and others for their being of peasant origins. This issue was the subject of antagonism between the Brahmins and Marathas, dating back to the time of Shivaji, but by the late 19th century moderate Brahmins were keen to ally with the influential Marathas of Bombay in the interests of Indian independence from Britain. These Brahmins supported the Maratha claim to Kshatriya status, and the legend of Shivaji, but their success in this political alliance was sporadic, and fell apart entirely following independence in 1947.
Various Maratha families lay claim to the Kshatriya varna, and the various clans make dis-similar claims. Bhonsles claim their origin from Suryavanshi Sisodias, Jadhavs from Yaduvanshi Yadavas, Bhoites from Chandravanshi Bhatis, Chavans from Agnivanshi Chauhans, Salunkhes from Agnivansha Solankis etc.
Maratha clans
Robert Vane Russell, an untrained ethnologist of the British Raj period, basing his research largely on Vedic literature, wrote that the Marathas belong to one of the 96 different clans, known as the 96 Kuli Marathas or Chhānnava Kule.
The organisation of this clan system is disputed in the popular culture and by historians. An authoritative listing was attempted in 1889, but the general body of lists are often at great variance with each other.
History
Before Shivaji
A number of Maratha warriors, including Shivaji’s father Shahaji served the various Deccan sultanates.
Maratha Empire
In 1674, Shivaji Bhosle carved out an independent Maratha kingdom from within the Bijapur Sultanate with Raigad as its capital, and successfully defended his territory from the Mughals. Confronted by the far greater forces of the Mughal Empire, Shivaji employed guerrilla tactics, which leveraged strategic factors such as demographics, speed, and focused surprise attacks (typically at night, and in rocky terrain) to defeat more numerous forces. In his “History of Warfare” (1983), Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery summarized these tactics, describing Shivaji as a military genius. After the death of Shivaji, the Marathas waged war with the Mughals from 1681 to 1707. The Marathas eventually emerged victorious.
Shivaji’s grandson Shahu became ruler of the Marathas in 1707; during his rule he appointed Peshwas as the prime ministers of the Maratha Empire. After the death of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the Maratha Empire expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas, at its peak stretching from Tamil Nadu in the south, to Peshawar(modern-day Pakistan) on the Afghanistan border in the north, and with expeditions to Bengal in the east. The Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali, amongst others, was unwilling to allow the Maratha’s gains to go unchecked. In 1761, the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat to Abdali’s forces, which halted their imperial expansion.
Ten years after the battle of Panipat, Madhavrao Peshwa reinstated Maratha authority over North India. In a bid to effectively manage the large empire, semi-autonomy was given to strongest of the knights, creating a confederacy of Maratha states. They became known as Gaekwads of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore and Malwa, the Scindias of Gwalior and Ujjain, and Bhonsales of Nagpur. In 1775, the British East India Company intervened in a succession struggle in Pune, which became known as the First Anglo-Maratha War.
The Marathas remained the preeminent power in India until their defeat by the British colonists in the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1818). Through the British East Indian Company, Britain then controlled most of India.
The history of the states and dynasties comprising the Maratha Empire constitutes a major portion of the history of late medieval India. Among its effects, the Maratha empire:
· were the primary force responsible for weakening and eventually ending the Mughal domination of India.
· were among those who participated in the revival of the power of Hindus in north India after many centuries of Muslim rule. At this time they were seen as major supporters of the Hindu cause.
· led to the dilution of the caste system as a large number of lower castes, Brahmins and other castes fought along with them.
· encouraged the use of Sanskrit and development of the Marathi language, and was seminal to the consolidation of a distinct Maharashtrian identity.
Maratha dynasties and states
Internal diaspora
The empire also resulted in the voluntary relocation of substantial numbers of Maratha and other Marathi-speaking people outside Maharashtra, and across a big part of India. Today several small but significant communities descended from these emigrants live in the north, south and west of India. These descendant communities tend often to speak the local languages, although many also speak Marathi in addition. Notable Maratha families outside Maharashtra include Scindia of Gwalior, Gaekwad of Baroda, Holkar of Indore, Puar of Dewas & Dhar, Ghorpade of Mudhol, and Bhonsle of Thanjavur.
Political participation
Marathas have dominated the state politics of Maharashtra since its inception in 1960. Since then, Maharashtra has witnessed heavy presence of Maratha ministers or officials (which comprises 25% of the state) in the Maharashtra state government, local municipal commissions, and panchayats. 10 out of 16 chief ministers of Maharashtra hailed from the Maratha community as of year 2012.
Military service
Beginning early in the 20th century, the British recognised Maratha as a martial race of India. Earlier listings of martial races had often excluded them, with Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the Indian Army 1885-1893, stating the need to substitute “more warlike and hardy races for the Hindusthani sepoys of Bengal, the Tamils and Telugus of Madras and the so-called Marathas of Bombay.” Historian Sikata Banerjee notes a dissonance in British military opinions of the Maratha, wherein the British portrayed them as both “formidable opponents” and yet not “properly qualified” for fighting, criticising the Maratha guerrilla tactics as an improper way of war. Banerjee cites an 1859 statement as emblematic of this disparity: “[T]here is something noble in the carriage of an ordinary Rajput, and something vulgar in that of the most distinguished Mahratta. The Rajput is the most worthy antagonist, the Mahratta the most formidable enemy.”
The Maratha Light Infantry regiment of the Indian Army is one of the “oldest and most renowned” regiments of the Indian Army. Its First Battalion, also known as the Jangi Paltan (“Warrior Platoon”), traces its origins to 1768 as part of the Bombay Sepoys. The battle cry of Maratha Light Infantry is Bol Shri Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj ki Jai! (“Cry Victory to Emperor Shivaji!”) in tribute to the Maratha sovereign.

 

April Fools’ Day

April Fools’ Day is an informal holiday celebrated every year on April 1. Popular since medieval times, the day is not a national holiday in any country, but it is widely recognized throughout European cultures and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other, called April fools. Hoax stories are also often found in the press and media on this day.
Origins
Precursors of April Fools’ Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, held March 25, and the Medieval Feast of Fools, held December 28, still a day on which pranks are played in Spanish-speaking countries.
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392), the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Thus, the passage originally meant 32 days after April, i.e. 2 May, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean “March 32”, i.e. April 1. In Chaucer’s tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.
In 1508, French poet Eloy d’Amerval referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally “April fish”), a possible reference to the holiday. In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1. In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as “Fooles holy day”, the first British reference. On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to “see the Lions washed”.
In the Middle Ages, up until the late 18th century, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25 (Feast of the Annunciation) in most European towns. In some areas of France, New Year’s was a week-long holiday ending on April 1. Many writers suggest that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on January 1 made fun of those who celebrated on other dates. The use of January 1 as New Year’s Day was common in France by the mid-16th century, and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.
Terminology
According to Yahoo News, there is a conversation surrounding whether the apostrophe should be placed between the l and the s (as in “April Fool’s Day”), or after the s (as in “April Fools’ Day”). It argues that the latter is the common consensus, though adds that there are arguments either way.
Longstanding customs
United Kingdom
In the UK, an April fool joke is revealed by shouting “April fool!” at the recipient, who becomes the “April fool”. A study in the 1950s, by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, found that in the UK, and in countries whose traditions derived from the UK, excluding Australia, the joking ceased at midday. A person playing a joke after midday is the “April fool” themselves.
In Scotland, April Fools’ Day is traditionally called Hunt-the-Gowk Day (“gowk” is Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person; Là na Gocaireachd ‘gowking day’ or Là Ruith na Cuthaige ‘the day of running the cuckoo’ in Gaelic), although this name has fallen into disuse. The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message requesting help of some sort. In fact, the message reads “Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile”. The recipient, upon reading it, will explain he can only help if he first contacts another person, and sends the victim to this person with an identical message, with the same result.
Ireland
In Ireland it was traditional to entrust the victim with an “important letter” to be given to a named person. That person would then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when finally opened contained the words “send the fool further”.
Iran
In Iran, jokes are played on the 13th day of the Persian new year (Nowruz), which falls on April 1 or April 2. This day, celebrated as far back as 536 BC, is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank-tradition in the world still alive today; this fact has led many to believe that April Fools’ Day has its origins in this tradition.
Poland
In Poland, prima aprilis (“1 April” in Latin) is a day full of jokes; various hoaxes are prepared by people, media (which sometimes cooperate to make the “information” more credible) and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided. This conviction is so strong that the anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 31.
Scandinavia
Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians celebrate April Fools’ Day (aprilsnar in Danish). Most Scandinavian news media outlets will publish exactly one false story on April 1; for newspapers this will typically be a first-page article but not the top headline.
April fish
In Italy, France, Belgium, and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada, April 1 tradition is often known as “April fish” (poisson d’avril in French or pesce d’aprile in Italian). This includes attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim’s back without being noticed. Such fish feature prominently on many late 19th- to early 20th-century French April Fools’ Day postcards.
April Fools’ Day pranks
In 1957, the BBC pulled a prank, known as the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest prank, where they broadcast a fake film of Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti. The BBC were later flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a prank on the news the next day.
Other prank days in the world
December 28, the equivalent day in Spain and Ibero-America, is also the Christian day of celebration of the “Day of the Holy Innocents”. The Christian celebration is a holiday in its own right, a religious one, but the tradition of pranks is not, though the latter is observed yearly. After somebody plays a joke or a prank on somebody else, the joker usually cries out, in some regions of Ibero-America: Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar (“You innocent little dove that let yourself be fooled”). In Mexico, the phrase is ¡Inocente para siempre! which means “Innocent forever!”. In Argentina, the prankster says ¡Que la inocencia te valga!, which roughly translates as a piece of advice on not to be as gullible as the victim of the prank. In Spain, it is common to say just ¡Inocente! (which in Spanish can mean “Innocent!”, but also “Gullible!”). Nevertheless, on the Spanish island of Minorca, Dia d’enganyar (“Fooling day”) is celebrated on April 1 because Menorca was a British possession during part of the 18th century.
In books and film
Bryce Courtenay wrote a novel called April Fool’s Day, first published in 1993. In some editions the title is April Fool’s Day: a modern tragedy; in others, it is April Fool’s Day: a modern love story.
Films, telemovies and television episodes have used April Fool’s Day as their title.
Reception
The holiday has received mixed reception from critics. This is epitomised in the great reception to the 1957 BBC prank. According to BBC News, “Newspapers were split over whether this was a great joke or a terrible hoax on the public”.
Ashley Macha of Health News and Views argued that April Fools can be good for one’s health because it encourages “jokes, hoaxes…pranks, [and] belly laughs”, and then explained all the benifits of laughter including stress relief and reducing strain on the heart. It also noted that the themed content makes sense within a larger context: “April 1st also marks the start of National Humor Month, a month-long celebration of laughter and happiness”. There are many “best of” April Fools day lists that are compiled in order to showcase the best examples of how the holiday is celebrated. Various April Fools campaigns have been praised for their innovation, creativity, writing, and general effort – especially those from the major corporations such as Google and Apple.
In a Yahoo News article entitled Is April Fools’ Day the Worst Holiday?, Jen Doll and Rebecca Greenfield answered: “In a word, yes. April Fools’ Day is hell”, and went on to describe the holiday as “creepy and manipulative”. They argued that on this day we’re “sort of rude and ‘gotcha!’ and even a little bit nasty”, and was based around schadenfreude and deceit as opposed to being “kind, loving, [and] generous”. When people post genuine news on April Fools day, it can often get misinterpreted as a joke. Similarly, sometimes jokes are taken very seriously. In both cases there are adverse affects – often confusion and misinformation, but in some cases worse. In an article listing the Good, Bad, and Ugly hoaxes of 2008, The Museum of Hoaxes listed a Ugly story in which “An Australian woman called emergency services to tell them her baby had fallen off the bed and stopped breathing. When the ambulances arrived, there was no sick baby. It was her idea of a hilarious April Fool”.

 

Dominion of Newfoundland

The Dominion of Newfoundland was a British Dominion from 1907 to 1949 (before which the territory had the status of a British colony, self-governing from 1855). The Dominion of Newfoundland was situated in northeastern North America along the Atlantic coast and comprised the island of Newfoundland and Labrador on the continental mainland. The Statute of Westminster of 11 December 1931 provided a mechanism for Newfoundland to achieve independence within the British Commonwealth, but rather than ratify it, after the near bankruptcy in 1933, on 16 February 1934 the Newfoundland Parliament passed an Address to the Crown relinquishing self-government. Responsible government in Newfoundland voluntarily ended and governance of the dominion reverted to direct control from London — one of the few countries that has ever voluntarily given up direct self-rule. Between 1934 and 1949 a six-member Commission of Government (plus a governor) administered Newfoundland, reporting to the Dominions Office in London. Newfoundland remained a de jure dominion until it joined Canada in 1949 to become Canada’s tenth province.
The Union Flag was adopted by the legislature as the official national flag of the Dominion of Newfoundland on 15 May 1931, before which time the Newfoundland Red Ensign, as civil ensign of Newfoundland, was used as the national flag (though not officially adopted by the legislature).
Political origins
In 1854 the British government established Newfoundland’s responsible government. In 1855, Philip Francis Little, a native of Prince Edward Island, won a parliamentary majority over Sir Hugh Hoyles and the Conservatives. Little formed the first administration from 1855 to 1858. Newfoundland rejected confederation with Canada in the 1869 general election. Prime Minister of Canada Sir John Thompson came very close to negotiating Newfoundland’s entry into confederation in 1892.
It remained a colony until acquiring dominion status in 1907 after the 1907 Imperial Conference decided to confer dominion status on all self-governing colonies.
First World War and after
Newfoundland’s own regiment, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, fought in the First World War. On 1 July 1916, the German Army wiped out most of that regiment at Beaumont Hamel on the first day on the Somme, inflicting 90 percent casualties. Yet the regiment went on to serve with distinction in several subsequent battles, earning the prefix “Royal”. Despite people’s pride in the accomplishments of the regiment, Newfoundland’s war debt for the regiment and the cost of maintaining a trans-island railway led to increased and ultimately unsustainable government debt in the post-war era.
After the war, Newfoundland along with the other dominions sent a separate delegation to the Paris Peace Conference but, unlike the other dominions, Newfoundland did not sign the Treaty of Versailles in her own right, nor did she seek a separate membership in the League of Nations.
In the 1920s, political scandals wracked the dominion. In 1923, the attorney general arrested Newfoundland’s prime minister Sir Richard Squires on charges of corruption. Despite his release soon after on bail, the British-led Hollis Walker commission reviewed the scandal. Soon after, the Squires government fell. Squires returned to power in 1928 because of the unpopularity of his successors, the pro-business Walter Stanley Monroe and (briefly) Frederick C. Alderdice (Monroe’s cousin), but found himself governing a country suffering from the Great Depression.
The Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council resolved Newfoundland’s long-standing Labrador boundary dispute with Canada to the satisfaction of Newfoundland and against Canada (and, in particular, contrary to the wishes of Quebec, the province that bordered Labrador) with a ruling on 1 April 1927. Prior to 1867, the Quebec North Shore portion of the “Labrador coast” had shuttled back and forth between the colonies of Lower Canada and Newfoundland. Maps up to 1927 showed the coastal region as part of Newfoundland, with an undefined boundary. The Privy Council ruling established a boundary along the drainage divide separating waters that flowed through the territory to the Labrador coast, although following two straight lines from the Romaine River along the 52nd parallel, then south near 57 degrees west longitude to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Quebec has long rejected the outcome, and Quebec’s provincially issued maps do not mark the boundary in the same way as boundaries with Ontario and New Brunswick.
End of responsible government
As a small country which relied primarily upon the export of fish, paper and minerals, the Great Depression hit Newfoundland very hard. Economic frustration combined with anger over government corruption led to a general dissatisfaction with democratic government. On 5 April 1932, a mob of 10,000 people marched on the Colonial Building (seat of the House of Assembly) and forced prime minister Squires to flee. Squires lost the election held later in 1932. The next government, led once more by Alderdice, called upon the British government to take direct control until Newfoundland could become self-sustaining. The United Kingdom, concerned over Newfoundland’s likelihood of defaulting on its war-debt payments, established the Newfoundland Royal Commission, headed by a Scottish peer, William Mackenzie, 1st Baron Amulree. Its report, released in 1933, assessed Newfoundland’s political culture as intrinsically corrupt and its economic prospects as bleak, and advocated the abolition of responsible government and its replacement by a Commission of the British Government. Acting on the report’s recommendations, Alderdice’s government voted itself out of existence in December 1933.
In 1934, the Dominion suspended Newfoundland’s self-governing status and the Commission of Government took control. Newfoundland remained a dominion in name only. A severe depression persisted until the Second World War broke out in 1939.
Second World War
Given Newfoundland’s strategic location in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allies (especially the United States of America) built many military bases there. Large numbers of unskilled men gained the first paycheques they had seen in years by working on construction and in dockside crews. National income doubled overnight as an economic boom took place in the Avalon Peninsula and to a lesser degree in Gander, Botwood, and Stephenville. The United States became the main supplier, and American money and influence diffused rapidly from the military, naval, and air bases. Prosperity returned to the fishing industry by 1943. Government revenues, aided by inflation and new income, quadrupled, even though Newfoundland had tax rates much lower than those in Canada, Britain, or the United States. To the astonishment of all, Newfoundland started financing loans to London. Wartime prosperity ended the long depression and reopened the question of political status.
The American Bases Act became law in Newfoundland on 11 June 1941. Newfoundland girls married American personnel by the thousands, “the Yanks’ jaunty manner and easy social ways making an often stark contrast to the Canadian servicemen who at this time began to coin the epithet ‘Newfie.'” (So many Newfoundland war brides moved to the United States that the government designed a postwar tourism campaign specifically for this audience.) The American connection worked so well that the Canadian government in Ottawa became alarmed. A new political party formed in Newfoundland to support closer ties with the U.S., the Economic Union Party, which Earle characterises as “a short-lived but lively movement for economic union with the United States”. Advocates of union with Canada denounced the Economic Union Party as republican, disloyal and anti-British; Britain refused to allow the voting populace the option to choose union with the U.S., and the U.S. State Department, needing British and Canadian cooperation during the Second World War, decided not to interfere.
National Convention and referenda
Following the Second World War, in 1946, an election took place to determine the membership of the Newfoundland National Convention, charged with deciding the future of Newfoundland. The Convention voted to hold a referendum to decide between continuing the Commission of Government or restoring responsible government. Joseph R. Smallwood, the leader of the confederates, moved for the inclusion of a third option — that of confederation with Canada. The Convention defeated his motion, but he did not give up, instead gathering more than 5,000 petition signatures within a fortnight, which he sent to London through the governor. The United Kingdom, insisting that it would not give Newfoundland any further financial assistance, added this third option of having Newfoundland join Canada to the ballot. After much debate, an initial referendum took place on 3 June 1948, to decide between continuing with the Commission of Government, reverting to dominion status, or joining the Canadian Confederation. Three parties participated in the referendum campaign: Smallwood’s Confederate Association campaigned for the confederation option while in the anti-confederation campaign Peter Cashin’s Responsible Government League and Chesley Crosbie’s Economic Union Party (both of which called for a vote for responsible government) took part. No party advocated petitioning Britain to continue the Commission of Government.
The result proved inconclusive, with 44.5 percent supporting the restoration of dominion status, 41.1 percent for confederation with Canada, and 14.3 percent for continuing the Commission of Government. Between the first and second referendums, rumour had it that Catholic bishops were using their religious influence to alter the outcome of the votes. The Orange Order, incensed, called on all its members to vote for confederation, as the Catholics voted for responsible government. The Protestants of Newfoundland outnumbered the Catholics by a ratio of 2:1. Some commentators believe that this sectarian divide influenced the outcome of the second referendum, on 22 July 1948, which asked Newfoundlanders to choose between confederation and dominion status, produced a vote of 52 percent to 48 percent for confederation, and Newfoundland joined Canada on 31 March 1949.
Not everyone accepted the results, however. Peter John Cashin, an outspoken anti-Confederate, questioned the validity of the votes. He claimed that an “unholy union between London and Ottawa” brought about confederation.
National anthem
The official anthem of the Dominion of Newfoundland was the “Ode to Newfoundland”, written by British colonial governor Sir Charles Cavendish Boyle in 1902 during his administration of Newfoundland (1901 to 1904). It was adopted as the official anthem on 20 May 1904, until confederation with Canada in 1949. In 1980, the province of Newfoundland re-adopted the song as an official provincial anthem, making Newfoundland and Labrador the only province in Canada to adopt a provincial anthem officially. The “Ode to Newfoundland” continues to be heard at public events in the province to this day; however, only the first and last verses are traditionally sung.

 

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (30 March 1811– 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with Gustav Kirchhoff. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. With his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, he developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use. The Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award for spectroscopy is named after Bunsen and Kirchhoff. Bunsen burners are still used today, in labs around the world.
Early life and education
Robert Bunsen was born at Göttingen in 1811, in what is now the state of Lower Saxony in Germany but was then the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia; upon the defeat of Napoleon three years later Göttingen became part of the Kingdom of Hanover, then in a personal union with the United Kingdom under King George III. Bunsen was the youngest of four sons of the University of Göttingen’s chief librarian and professor of modern philology, Christian Bunsen (1770–1837). Sources disagree on Robert Bunsen’s exact birth date. His parish register, as well as two curricula vitae handwritten by Bunsen himself, support the claim that 30 March 1811 is Bunsen’s true birth date; however, many later sources cite 31 March as the date. According to his biographer Georg Lockemann, Bunsen himself celebrated his birthday on the 31st in his later years. Lockemann nevertheless regarded the 30th as the correct date.
After attending school in Holzminden, Bunsen matriculated at Göttingen in 1828 and studied chemistry with Friedrich Stromeyer as well as mineralogy with Johann Friedrich Ludwig Hausmann and mathematics with Carl Friedrich Gauss. After obtaining a Ph.D. in 1831, Bunsen spent 1832 and 1833 traveling in Germany, France, and Austria; Friedlieb Runge (who discovered aniline and in 1819 isolated caffeine), Justus von Liebig in Giessen, and Eilhard Mitscherlich in Bonn were among the many scientists he met on his journeys.
Academic career
In 1833 Bunsen became a lecturer at Göttingen and began experimental studies of the (in)solubility of metal salts of arsenous acid. His discovery of the use of iron oxide hydrate as a precipitating agent is still today the most effective antidote against arsenic poisoning. This interdisciplinary research was carried on and published in conjunction with the physician Arnold Adolph Berthold. In 1836, Bunsen succeeded Friedrich Wöhler at the Polytechnic School of Kassel. Bunsen taught there for three years, and then accepted an associate professorship at the University of Marburg, where he continued his studies on cacodyl derivatives. He was promoted to full professorship in 1841.
Bunsen’s work brought him quick and wide acclaim, partly because cacodyl, which is extremely toxic and undergoes spontaneous combustion in dry air, is so difficult to work with. Bunsen almost died from arsenic poisoning, and an explosion with cacodyl cost him sight in his right eye. In 1841, Bunsen created the Bunsen cell battery, using a carbon electrode instead of the expensive platinum electrode used in William Robert Grove’s electrochemical cell. Early in 1851 he accepted a professorship at the University of Breslau, where he taught for three semesters.
In late 1852 Bunsen became the successor of Leopold Gmelin at the University of Heidelberg. There he used electrolysis to produce pure metals, such as chromium, magnesium, aluminium, manganese, sodium, barium, calcium and lithium. A long collaboration with Henry Enfield Roscoe began in 1852, in which they studied the photochemical formation of hydrogen chloride from hydrogen and chlorine. He discontinued his work with Roscoe in 1859 and joined Gustav Kirchhoff to study emission spectra of heated elements, a research area called spectrum analysis. For this work, Bunsen and his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, had perfected a special gas burner by 1855, that was influenced by yearly models . The newer design of Bunsen and Desaga, which provided a very hot and clean flame, is now called simply the “Bunsen burner”.
There had been earlier studies of the characteristic colors of heated elements, but nothing systematic. In the summer of 1859, Kirchhoff suggested to Bunsen that he should try to form prismatic spectra of these colors. By October of that year the two scientists had invented an appropriate instrument, a prototype spectroscope. Using it, they were able to identify the characteristic spectra of sodium, lithium, and potassium. After numerous laborious purifications, Bunsen proved that highly pure samples gave unique spectra. In the course of this work, Bunsen detected previously unknown new blue spectral emission lines in samples of mineral water from Dürkheim. He guessed that these lines indicated the existence of an undiscovered chemical element. After careful distillation of forty tons of this water, in the spring of 1860 he was able to isolate 17 grams of a new element. He named the element “caesium”, after the Latin word for deep blue. The following year he discovered rubidium, by a similar process.
In 1860, Bunsen was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1877, Robert Bunsen together with Gustav Robert Kirchhoff were the first recipients of the prestigious Davy Medal “for their researches & discoveries in spectrum analysis”.
Personality
Bunsen was one of the most universally admired scientists of his generation. He was a master teacher, devoted to his students, and they were equally devoted to him. At a time of vigorous and often caustic scientific debates, Bunsen always conducted himself as a perfect gentleman, maintaining his distance from theoretical disputes. He much preferred to work quietly in his laboratory, continuing to enrich his science with useful discoveries. As a matter of principle he never took out a patent. He never married.
Retirement and death
When Bunsen retired at the age of 78, he shifted his work solely to geology and mineralogy, interests which he had pursued throughout his career. He died in Heidelberg at the age of 88.

 

Yaoya Oshichi

Yaoya Oshichi (1667 – 29 March 1683), literally “greengrocer Oshichi”, was a daughter of the greengrocer Tarobei. who lived in the Hongō neighborhood of Edo at the beginning of the Edo period. She was burned at the stake for attempting to commit arson. The story became the subject of joruri plays. The year of her birth is sometimes given as 1666.

Story
In December 1682, she fell in love with Ikuta Shōnosuke (or Saemon), a temple page, during the great fire in the Tenna Era, at Shōsen-in, the family temple (danna-dera). The next year she attempted arson, thinking she could meet him again if another fire occurred. She was caught by the police and burnt at the stake in Suzugamori for her crimes.
The magistrate at her trial, though knowing she was sixteen years old, asked her, ”You must be fifteen years old, aren’t you?” At the time, boys and girls under the age of sixteen were not subject to the death penalty, and since strict family registration systems were not yet widely implemented, confirmation of age by a bureaucrat was sufficient. Misunderstanding the magistrate’s intentions to try her as a minor, she replied that she was sixteen. At a loss, the magistrate asked her firmly again, ”You must be fifteen years old, are you not?” Not taking the hint again, she honestly stated her age as sixteen, leaving the magistrate no alternative but to sentence her to burn at the stake.
Novels
Three years later, Ihara Saikaku described this case in the book Kōshoku Gonin Onna (English translation, Five Women Who Loved Love). Twenty years after Yaoya Oshichi’s death, a playwright, Ki no Kaion, took great liberties with the story to create a play for the traditional puppet theater entitled Yaoya Ohichi. In 1773, three playwrights (Suga Sensuke, Matsuda Wakichi, and Wakatake Fuemi further revised Ki no Kaion’s play to produce Date musume koi no higanoko. In these two versions, Oshichi does not commit arson, instead she climbs a fire tower on a snowy night to ring the alarm bell to open the city gates in order to save the life of her lover, whom she cannot otherwise reach because of the nightly curfew. The penalty, however, for sounding a false fire alarm is death, a fate Oshichi chooses to face. In the puppet plays, the character of Oshichi is presented not as the seemingly impetuous, foolish girl of the historical record, but instead as a noble figure whose selfless devotion saves the man she loves. Later playwrights developed Oshichi’s story for the stage: Tamenaga Tarobei in Junshoku Edo Murasaki, and Tsuruya Nanboku in Katakiuchi Yagura daiko.
Legacy
In the calendar then used in Japan, a year is known by five elements, and one of 12 animals. Oshichi was born in 1666, the year of the fire horse (Hinoe Uma), which recurs every 60 years. Since then, it has been thought inauspicious for a girl to be born in the year of the fire horse – and in Japan, fewer children are born in such years (the most recent being 1966).

 

June Havoc

June Havoc (November 8, 1912 – March 28, 2010) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood, and stage directed, both on and off-Broadway. She last appeared on television in 1990 on General Hospital.
Havoc was the younger sister of burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee.
Early life
She was born as either “Ellen Evangeline Hovick” or “Ellen June Hovick,” in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, probably in 1912, although some sources indicate 1913. She herself was uncertain of the year – according to The New York Times obituary, her mother forged several birth certificates. (Her mother reportedly had five birth certificates for her).
Her lifelong career in show business began when she was a child, billed as “Baby June”. Her only full sibling, Rose Louise Hovick (1911–1970), was called “Louise” by her family members. Their parents were Rose Thompson Hovick (1890–1954) and John Olaf Hovick, a Norwegian American, who worked as a newspaper advertising man.
Career
Vaudeville
Following their parents’ divorce, the two sisters earned the family’s income by appearing in vaudeville, where June’s talent often overshadowed Louise. Baby June got an audition with Alexander Pantages (1876–1936), who had come to Seattle in 1902 to build theaters up and down the west coast of the United States. Soon, she was launched in vaudeville and also appeared in Hollywood movies. She could not speak until the age of three, but the films were all silent. She would cry for the cameras when her mother told her that the family’s dog had died.
In December 1928, Havoc, in an effort to escape her overbearing mother’s ambitions for her career, eloped with Bobby Reed, a boy in the vaudeville act. Rose reported Reed to the police and he was arrested. Rose had a concealed gun on her when she met Bobby at the police station. She pulled the trigger, but the safety was on. Eventually, Reed was released and June married him, leaving both her family and the act. The marriage did not last, but the two remained on friendly terms. By the age of 17, she had an affair with an older married man, Jamie Smythe, reportedly a big-time marathon promoter. He fathered her only child, April Hyde (April 2, 1930 – December 28, 1998), who was an actress in the 1950s known as April Kent.
June’s elder sister, Louise, gravitated to burlesque and became a well-known performer using the stage name Gypsy Rose Lee.
Film and stage
June adopted the surname of Havoc, a variant of her birth name. She got her first acting break on Broadway in Sigmund Romberg’s Forbidden Melody in 1936. She later starred in Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey on Broadway. Havoc moved to Hollywood in the late 1940s, appearing in such movies as Gentleman’s Agreement.
Havoc and her sister continued to get demands for money and gifts from their mother until her death in 1954. After Rose’s death, the sisters then were free to write about her without risking a lawsuit. Lee’s memoir, titled Gypsy, was published in 1957 and was taken as inspirational material for the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents Broadway musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. Havoc did not like the way she was portrayed in the piece which became a source of contention between the two. Havoc and Lee became estranged for many years, but later reconciled shortly before Lee’s death in 1970.
Havoc wrote two memoirs, Early Havoc and More Havoc. She also wrote a play entitled Marathon ’33, based on Early Havoc with elements of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? The play starred Julie Harris, and ran briefly on Broadway.
Personal life
Havoc was married three times. Her first marriage was in 1929 to Bobby Reed, a boy in her vaudeville act. The marriage ended in divorce.
She married for a second time, in 1935, to Donald S. Gibbs; they later divorced. Her third marriage, to radio and television director and producer William Spier (1906–1973), lasted from January 25, 1948 until his death.
Havoc’s sister, Gypsy Rose Lee, died of lung cancer in 1970, aged 59, and is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, in Inglewood, California.
Havoc was devoted to animals, offering a caring and loving home to various creature from orphaned geese to donkeys. Her homes in Weston, Wilton and finally North Stamford, Connecticut housed animals for decades.
Death
Havoc died at her Stamford, Connecticut home on March 28, 2010, at age 97.
Honors
Havoc was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 1964 for Marathon ’33, which she also wrote. In 2000, Havoc was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Legacy
The June Havoc Theatre, housed at the Abingdon Theatre in New York City, was named for her in 2003.

Elizabeth Muriel Gregory “Elsie” MacGill

Elizabeth Muriel Gregory “Elsie” MacGill, (27 March 1905 – 4 November 1980), known as the “Queen of the Hurricanes”, was the world’s first female aircraft designer. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario. After her work at CC&F she ran a successful consulting business. Between 1967–1970 she was a commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, published in 1970.
Early life and education
MacGill was born in Vancouver on 27 March 1905, daughter of James Henry MacGill, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, and Helen Gregory MacGill, British Columbia’s first woman judge. Her mother was an advocate of women’s suffrage and influenced her decision to study engineering. MacGill graduated from the University of Toronto in 1927, and was the first Canadian woman to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering.
Following graduation, she took a junior job with a firm in Pontiac, Michigan. While there, she began part-time graduate studies in aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, enrolling in the fall of 1927 in the full-time Master of Science in Engineering program to begin aircraft design work and conduct research and development in the University’s new aeronautics facilities. In 1929, she became the first woman in North America, and likely the world, to be awarded a masters degree in aeronautical engineering.
Contracting polio just before her graduation, MacGill was told that she would probably spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She refused to accept that possibility, however, and learned to walk supported by two strong metal canes. She wrote magazine articles about aircraft and flying to help finance her doctoral studies at MIT in Cambridge.
Engineering career
In 1934, she started work at Fairchild Aircraft’s operations in Montreal as an Assistant Engineer. In 1938, she was the first woman elected to corporate membership in the Engineering Institute of Canada.
Later that year she was hired as Chief Aeronautical Engineer at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F), becoming the first woman in the world to hold such a position. At CC&F she designed and tested a new training aircraft, the Maple Leaf Trainer II.
The Maple Leaf was designed and first built in CC&F’s Ft. William (now Thunder Bay) factories, where she had moved. Although the Maple Leaf II did not enter service with any Commonwealth forces, ten (two were completed, but eight had to be assembled in Mexico) were sold to Mexico where its high-altitude performance was important given the many airfields from which it had to operate. Her role in the company changed when the factory was selected to build the Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The factory quickly expanded from about 500 workers to 4,500 by war’s end, half of them women. For much of the war MacGill’s primary task was to streamline operations in the production line as the factories rapidly expanded. MacGill was also responsible for designing solutions to allow the aircraft to operate during the winter, introducing de-icing controls and a system for fitting skis for landing on snow.
By the time the production line shut down in 1943, CC&F had produced over 1,400 Hurricanes. In 1940 she wrote a paper on the experience, Factors affecting mass production of aeroplanes. Her role in this successful production run made her famous, even to the point of a comic book being published in the United States about her, using her then-famous nickname, “Queen of the Hurricanes”. Numerous popular stories were published about her in the media as well, reflecting the public’s fascination with this female engineer.
After Hurricane production ended, CC&F looked for new work and secured with a contract from the US Navy to build SB2C Helldivers. This production did not go nearly as smoothly, and a continual stream of minor changes from Curtiss-Wright (in turn demanded by the US Navy) meant that full-scale production took a long time to get started. In the midst of this project MacGill and the works manager, E. J. (Bill) Soulsby, were dismissed. It was initially rumored that Soulsby had been curt with a group of senior naval officers who had visited a week earlier, but it was later revealed the reason for the dismissals was that the two were having an affair.
MacGill and Soulsby were married in 1943 and moved to Toronto, where they set up an aeronautical consulting business. In 1946, she became the first woman to serve as Technical Advisor for ICAO, where she helped to draft International Air Worthiness regulations for the design and production of commercial aircraft. In 1947 she became the chairman of the United Nations Stress Analysis Committee, the first woman ever to chair a UN committee.
Women’s rights
MacGill published a biography of her mother in 1955 entitled My Mother, the Judge: A Biography of Judge Helen Gregory MacGill. Her mother and grandmother’s work in the suffrage movement inspired her to spend an increasing amount of time dealing with women’s rights during the 1960s.
She served as the president of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs from 1962 to 1964. In 1967 she was named to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada and co-authored the report published in 1970. She also filed a “Separate Statement” describing those of her opinions that differed from the majority on the Commission. For example, she wanted abortion removed from the entirety of the Criminal Code.
She was also a member of the Ontario Status of Women Committee, an affiliate of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. For this work she was given the Order of Canada in 1971.
Later life
After a short illness, MacGill died on 4 November 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In noting her death, Shirley Allen, a Canadian member of the Ninety-Nines organization of women aviators described her: “She had a brilliant mind and was recognized as an outstanding Canadian woman. Neither gender nor disability prevented her from using her talents to serve her community and country.”
Awards
MacGill’s paper, Factors Affecting the Mass Production of Aeroplanes, won the Gzowski Medal from the Engineering Institute of Canada in 1941. In March 1953 the American Society of Women Engineers made her an honorary member and named her “Woman Engineer of the Year,” the first time that the Award had gone out of the United States. She was awarded the Centennial Medal by the Canadian government in 1967, the Ninety-Nines awarded her the Amelia Earhart Medal in 1975, and in 1979 the Ontario Association of Professional Engineers presented her with their gold medal. In 1983 she was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame, and in 1992 she was a founding inductee in the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in Ottawa.

 

The Combat of the Thirty

The Combat of the Thirty (26 March 1351), known as Combat des Trente in French, was an episode in the Breton War of Succession, a war fought to determine who would rule the Duchy of Brittany. It was an arranged fight between picked combatants from both sides of the conflict.
It was fought at a site midway between the Breton castles of Josselin and Ploërmel between thirty champions, knights and squires on each side, in a challenge issued by Jean de Beaumanoir, a captain of Charles of Blois supported by the King of France, to Robert Bemborough, a captain of Jean de Montfort supported by the King of England.
After a hard-fought battle, the Franco-Breton Blois faction emerged victorious. The combat was later celebrated by medieval chroniclers and balladeers as a noble display of the ideals of chivalry. In the words of Jean Froissart, the warriors “held themselves as valiantly on both sides as if they had been all Rolands and Olivers.” This idealised account conflicts with a version according to which the combat arose from the mistreatment of the local population by Bemborough.
Background and cause
The Breton War of Succession was a struggle between the House of Montfort and House of Blois for control of the Duchy of Brittany. It came to be absorbed into the larger Hundred Years War between France and England, with England supporting the Montforts and France supporting the Blois family. At the time of the Combat, the war had become stalemated, with each faction controlling strongholds at different locations within Brittany, but occasionally making sorties into one another’s territory.
Robert Bemborough, a knight leading the Montfortist faction which controlled Ploërmel, was challenged to single combat by Jean de Beaumanoir, the captain of nearby Josselin, controlled by the Blois faction. According to the chronicler Froissart, this purely personal duel between the two leaders became a larger struggle when Bemborough suggested a combat between twenty or thirty knights on each side, a proposal that was enthusiastically accepted by de Beaumanoir.
The motivation for the combat is unclear. The earliest written sources present it as a purely chivalric exercise, undertaken to “honour” the ladies for whom the knights were fighting: referring to Joan, Duchess of Brittany (House of Blois) and Joanna of Flanders (House of Montfort). These woman were leading the two factions at the time, as Joan’s husband was in captivity and Joanna’s was dead (her son was a young child at the time). This is the account given by the contemporary chroniclers Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart, both of whom present the conflict as purely a matter of honour with no personal animosity involved. Le Bel states that he had his information from one of the combatants. Froissart appears to simply copy le Bel’s version.
However, popular ballads portrayed the cause differently. The earliest of these, written by an unknown local supporter of the Blois faction, depicts Bemborough and his knights as ruthless despoilers of the local population, who appealed to Beaumanoir for help. Beaumanoir is depicted as a hero coming to the aid of the defenceless people. The poet also portrays Beaumanoir as a model of Christian piety, who puts his faith in God, in contrast to Bemborough who relies on the Prophesies of Merlin. This version was standardised in Pierre Le Baud’s History of the Bretons, written a century later, in which Bemborough’s alleged cruelty is explained by his desire to avenge the death of Thomas Dagworth.
Whatever the cause, the fight was arranged in the form of an emprise —an arranged Pas d’armes— which took place at an area known as the chêne de Mi-Voie (the Halfway Oak) between Ploërmel and Josselin, between picked combatants. It was organised in the manner of a tournament, with refreshments on hand and a large gathering of spectators. Bemborough is supposed to have said,
And let us right there try ourselves and do so much that people will speak of it in future times in halls, in palaces, in public places and elsewhere throughout the world.
The words are recorded by Froissart: “the saying may not be authentic”, Johan Huizinga remarks, “but it teaches us what Froissart thought”.
Beaumanoir commanded thirty Bretons, Bemborough a mixed force of twenty Englishmen (including Robert Knolles and Hugh Calveley), six German mercenaries and four Breton partisans of Montfort. It is unclear whether Bemborough himself was English or German. His name is spelled in many variant forms, and is given as “Brandebourch” by Froissart, and also appears as “Bembro”. His first name is sometimes given as Robert, sometimes as Richard. Both Le Bel and Froissart say he was a German knight, but historians have doubted this. All the Blois-faction knights can be identified, though Jean de Beaumanoir’s given name is “Robert” in some versions. The names and identities of the Montforists are much more confused and uncertain.
Battle
The battle, fought with swords, daggers, spears, and axes, mounted or on foot, was of the most desperate character, in its details very reminiscent of the last fight of the Burgundians in the Nibelungenlied, especially in the celebrated advice of Geoffroy du Bois to his wounded leader, who was asking for water: “Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir; thy thirst will pass” (Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir, la soif te passera).
According to Froissart, the battle was fought with great gallantry on both sides. After several hours of fighting there were four dead on the French side and two on the English side. Both sides were exhausted and agreed to a break for refreshments and bandaging of injuries. After the battle resumed, the English leader Bemborough was wounded and then killed, apparently by du Bois. At this point the English faction formed a tight defensive body, which the French repeatedly attacked. A German soldier called Croquart is said to have displayed the greatest prowess in rallying the Anglo-Breton defence.
In the end, the victory was decided by Guillaume de Montauban, a squire who mounted his horse and rode into the English line, breaking it. He overthrew seven of the English champions, the rest being forced to surrender. All the combatants on either side were either dead or seriously wounded, with nine on the English side slain. The prisoners were well treated and released on payment of a small ransom.
Reputation
While the combat did not have any effect on the outcome of the Breton war of succession, it was considered by contemporaries to be an example of the finest chivalry. It was sung by trouvères, retold in the chronicles of Froissart and largely admired, and honoured in verse and the visual arts. A commemorative stone was placed at the site of the combat situated between Josselin and Ploermel and king Charles V of France commissioned a tapestry depicting it. The renown attached to those who participated was such that twenty years later, Jean Froissart noticed a scarred survivor, Yves Charruel, at the table of Charles V, where he was honoured above all others due to having been one of the Thirty.
According to historian Steven Muhlberger, this chivalric version concentrates on “how the deed was done and not on who won. The willingness of all concerned to agree to rules and to actually observe them, to fight their best and not to run when injured or in danger of capture are the focus – and both sides are shown as equally worthy in that respect.”
Later, the combat came to be seen in very different terms, influenced by the most famous of the contemporary popular ballads on the topic. In this version the English knights are villains, and the Blois faction are loyal and worthy local warriors. The balladeer lists each fighter on both sides (though garbles several English names). He situates the Franco-Breton Blois faction as all local gentry and aristocracy performing their proper social duty to protect the people, thus justifying “the privileges that nobles held as brave defenders of the weak”. The Montfortists are a melange of foreign mercenaries and brigands who “torment the poor people”. After Brittany was absorbed into France, this version was incorporated into French nationalist accounts of the Hundred Years War, which was portrayed as a heroic struggle against foreign invaders who sought to violate France. Since the French faction had lost the War of Succession itself, the Combat was promoted as a symbolic and moral victory. A large monumental obelisk was commissioned by Napoleon in 1811 to be placed at the site of the battle, but it was not built during his reign. It was eventually erected in 1819 by the restored Bourbon king Louis XVIII, after the fall of Napoleon, with an inscription stating “God give the King long life, the Bourbons eternity!” The inscription goes on to assert that the “thirty Bretons whose names are given as follows, fought to defend the poor, labourers and craftsmen and they vanquished foreigners attracted on the soil of the Country by fateful dissents. Breton posterity, imitate your ancestors!”
Though the combat had much less significance for the English, the fact that it was won because one combatant mounted a horse to break the Anglo-Breton line was later portrayed as evidence that the Franco-Bretons cheated. Edward Smedley’s History of France (1836) states that the manoeuvre “wears some appearance of treachery”. This version was fictionalised by Arthur Conan Doyle in his historical novel Sir Nigel, in which Bemborough (called Richard of Bambro’ in the novel) accepts the rules of the challenge in a chivalric spirit, but the Franco-Bretons only win because Montauban, portrayed as Beaumanoir’s squire, mounts his horse, when the conflict was supposed to be on foot, and rides upon the English trampling them.
A free English translation in verse of the ballad was written by Harrison Ainsworth, who gives the name of the English leader as “Sir Robert Pembroke”. He is fancifully portrayed as the overall English leader after the death of Thomas Dagworth. Ainsworth argued that “Bembro” was originally “Pembroke” on the grounds that the Breton language version of the name was “Pennbrock”. “Penn brock” means “badger head” in Breton, which had become a derogatory nickname for Bemborough in Breton ballads.